the Ram

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. The Greeks
associated Aries with the Ram who carried
Phrixus and his sister
Helle on his back
to Colchis (the Georgian region of the Caucasus) to escape the evil
designs of their stepmother, Ino, who was about to kill them. In crossing
the strait that divides Europe from Asia, Helle became giddy and lost
her hold, falling off the Ram into the sea when she disobeyed a warning
not to look down, the place thereafter became the Hellespont which today
separates Greece and Turkey. Continuing his flight, the ram bore the
boy to Colchis, at the eastern end of the Euxine or Black sea. On reaching
his journey's end Phrixus sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in
the Grove of Ares where it was turned to gold and became
the object of the Argonauts' (Argo Navis)
quest.

I suggest that one possible consequence of Helle falling off the
Ram might be symbolic over-representation of the masculine element in
the Arian psyche.

According to Apollonius Rhodius, Phrixos had journeyed to Aia (better
known as Kholkis, or Colchis);

"bestriding a ram which Hermes had made all
of gold" (2.1143-45; Seaton 1912) [1].

The Biblical school said that Aries represented
Abraham’s Ram caught in the thicket [Allen,
Star Names] when the then current religious-law demanded that
the first-born son be sacrificed to God.

"Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him
was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So
Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering
instead of his son [Isaac]" Gen 22:10-13

Abraham and Isaac are said to be represented by the Centaur
Centaurus [or perhaps Centaurus and
Lupus]. Ara, the Altar,
was the place where the sacrifice took place.

Aries' symbol,
, represents
the spiral horns of a Ram. The Hebrew word for a ram's horn was
shofar,
from Hebrew shophar, 'ram's horn,' related to Arabic sawafiru,
'ram's horns,' Akkadian shapparu, 'wild goat' [2].
The shofar was blown on two days of the year; Rosh Hashanah, corresponding
to the Christian Feast of Trumpets, - rosh means 'head', and
hashanah, 'year'; and Yom Kippur, corresponding to the Christian
Day of Atonement. The shofar blown at mount Sinai,
when the Torah was given, came from the ram which had been sacrificed
in place of Isaac [3].

Less commonly, the shofar was called yobel
[4]. In Leviticus
xxv, the Jubilee Year was laid down as a year of celebration
proclaimed every fifty years by blowing trumpets throughout Israel.
The word jubilee is related to yobel,
a ram's horn trumpet. Hebrew yobhel meant
'leading animal, ram,' and by extension 'ram's
horn,' and since a ram's horn was a trumpet blown to announce
the start of a special year in which slaves were freed, land left untilled,
etc, the term yobel came to be used for the
year itself. [John Ayto,
Dictionary of Word Origins].

Linguists say that the word 'jubilee' (from Hebrew
yobel) is not related to 'jubilation' (an
expression of joy) from Latin jubilare; because 'Jubilee' comes
from Hebrew and 'jubilation' from Latin. However,
Klein says the word 'jubilee' was influenced in form by a confusion
of this word with Latin jubilare; "the shared sense of 'celebration'
means that jubilee and jubilation have been confused for sixteen hundred
years, ever since the Bible was first translated into Latin" [5].

The 49th year is termed the Sabbath. The jubilee is the fiftieth
year after the cycle begins, but the cycle only has seven sets of seven
years, or 49 years. Thus, the 50th year of the cycle is the same as
the first year of the cycle [6]:

“A jubilee (iubileus) is translated
as 'a year of forgiveness.' Both the term and the number are Hebrew.
It is made up of seven sets of seven years, that is, forty-nine
years. On the jubilee trumpets blared, and their old holdings reverted
to each person, debts would be forgiven, and liberties confirmed.
We ourselves celebrate this number still in the number of days of
Pentecost after the resurrection of the Lord, with sin forgiven
and the written record of our whole debt erased, as we are freed
from every trammel, receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit coming
upon us” [The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.129.]

Freedom from slavery has further associations with Aries, the Jewish
Nisan, our March-April, for Josephus said that it was when the sun was
here in this month that his people were released from the bondage of
Egypt [Allen, Starnames].

The same symbolic meaning is present in Christianity of the Ram or Lamb in reference
to the removal or forgiveness of our sins.

John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." [Bible Verses John
1:29]

In Northern European countries they used a word for ram which is
related to our word hurt; Old French hurter,
originally meant 'to butt or toss like a ram', Frankish *hurt,
'ram', Old Norse hrutr, 'ram'; hurtle is another
relative.

There are a number of comments on the Net on the resemblance of the
Dodge Ram logo to the human female reproductive system:

This is not a new idea, 7th century Isidore commented on the likeness:

"it is called uterus because it is two-fold
and divides on both (uterque) sides, into two parts that extend
apart and bend back in the shape of a ram's horn" [The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.240.]

The "two parts that extend apart and bend back in the shape of a
ram's horn" is what we call the fallopian tubes, salpinges
(singular salpinx). Tuba is a Latin word for trumpet, related
to the English 'tube'. In the textbooks the fallopian tubes are called
oviducts (the adjective applying to sheep is ovine). Greek
salpinx has three meanings; a trumpet, a fallopian tube, and
also the eustachian tube in the ear. The Greek salpinx, trumpet,
might be the same as the shofar trumpet which has been
translated as salpinx into Greek [9].
The salpinges are two tubes leading from the ovaries of female
mammals into the uterus. After the ovum or egg matures in the ovary
it falls into and down the fallopian tube. The trip to the uterus
takes hours or days. Conception takes place in the fallopian tube
(with some exceptions).

"Many think that our figure [Aries] was designed
to represent the Egyptian King of Gods shown at Thebes with
ram's horns, and variously known as Amon,
Ammon, Hammon, Amen,
or Amun, and worshiped with great ceremony at his temple
in the oasis Ammonium, now Siwah, 5° west of Cairo
on the northern limit of the Libyan desert [Libya was a term for the
African continent]. Kircher gave Aries' title there as Tametouro
Amoun, Regum Ammonis" [Star
Names]. Sacred to Ammon is a fat-tailed species
of ram--ovis platyura aegyptiaca, whose horns
are large, curved and downturned-- that is found only in the area of
the Sceptre Nome, Egypt.

"Pliny [31st book, ch. 7] tells us that the word Ammoniacomes from the Greek word ammos(sand), ammonia being a salt found below the sand in Cyrenaica in
Africa. The Greeks and Romans became acquainted with the worship of
Jupiter Ammon through the Cyrenians, and so in heathen mythology the
addition of Ammon was given to Jupiter in allusion to the sandy
desert of Sahara, where a temple to Jupiter was built" [Roots
And Ramifications, Arthur John Knapp, 1857, p.133-134]

"they have named Aries (i.e. the
Ram) on account of Ammon Jupiter,
because those who made the idols fashioned the horns of a ram on his
head” [p.106]. “Ammon, whose name for good reason is
rendered 'the son of my people,' is so derived that partly its sense
is of a proper name, and partly it is an expression in itself, for
ammi, after which the Ammonites
are named, is the word for 'my people'". [The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.163]

Several words derive from the ancient Egyptian name Amun
via the Greek form Ammon: ammonite (an extinct marine
mollusk with a flat partitioned spiral shell, from Latin cornuAmmonis, literally ‘horn of Ammon'), ammonia (‘salt
of Ammon’, from Greek Ammon, an Egyptian god near whose temple
ammonia and ammoniac were said to be obtained), ammonium chloride
(chemical used in batteries), amino (intermediates in metabolism),
amine, -amine (ammonia derivatives). Argali is a large
wild sheep found in the dry mountainous areas of central and northern
Asia. Latin name: Ovisammon. Also
related the word amen, 'so be it' at the end of a prayer.

There is a part of our brain called the horn of Ammon,
a group of nerve cells within the hippocampus, which are clustered together
in the shape of a horn, and make up the 'horn of Ammon'. "The hippocampus
consists of two 'horns' that curve back from the area of the hypothalamus
to the amygdala. It appears to be very important in converting things
that are 'in your mind' at the moment (in short-term memory) into things
that you will remember for the long run (long-term memory)" [10].
Whatever its exact function one thing we do know is that Aries people
have short term memory and soon forgive and forget; perhaps in character
with the spirit of the Jubilee when sins are forgiven and debts erased
etc. The acronym RAM, r(andom-)a(ccess) m(emory), in
computer science is a memory device in which information can be accessed
in any order.

Rams or lambs were sacrificed to redeem the firstborn of animals
and humans, to make atonement for sin, as God told Moses to do in Exodus
12:29. The jubilee was proclaimed by the sound of a ram's horn on the
Day of Atonement. Amenhotep IV introduced the worship
of Aten - Aton, the sun's disc itself, identifying
it as Amun-Ra [11].
Atone comes from the words at + one, the word resembles
Aton?

Another derivation:

"The Libyan Jupiter [Ammon]; so called
from the Greek ammos (sand), because his temple
was in the desert. Herodotus calls it an Egyptian word (ii. 42)." (Brewers
Dictionary)

Greek ammos (sand) is believed to be related
to Ammon, and the Latin word for sand, arena,
resembles the word Aries. Latin harena,
arena, was the place of combat (literally 'place strewn with
sand'). The arena was the area in the center of an ancient Roman amphitheater
where contests and other spectacles were held. They were one-to-one
combats like two rams with locked horns. Farmers have trouble with rams
locking horns and sometimes have to intervene "if they are locked for
a day or so" [12]. Nowadays an arena denotes a scene of contest—physical,
mental, or figurative. Arenaria are the genus of flowering
plants called sandworts.

"Ram is a general West Germanic word
for 'male sheep,' now shared only by Dutch (although German has the
derivative ramme, 'rammer').
It may be related to Old Norse ramr, 'strong.'
the allusion being to the ram's strength in butting. This is reflected
in the word's metaphorical applications', it was being used in English
for a 'battering-ram,' and by the 14th century the
verb ram had emerged. Another relative is
the verb ramble, which etymologically denotes
'wander around like a randy ram, looking for ewes to copulate with.'
It was borrowed from Middle Dutch rammelen,
a derivative of rammen, 'copulate with,' which
is connected with ram" [John Ayto,
Dictionary of Word Origins].

The word ramble is probably a variant of Middle
English romblen, frequentative of Middle English romen,
'to roam' [Klein].

In classical times battering rams were used to break
through doors and walls. The zodiacal sign Aries rules
the head in general. When a baby is about to be born, the head acts
as a battering ram until the cervix is wide enough to let the head through.
"To act as a dilating wedge against the cervix, the infant's head must
push against it with a rhythmic force. A battering ram is a crude yet
accurate metaphor" [13].

"... he [Aries the Ram] will yield his produce for the
common benefit, the fleece which by a thousand crafts gives birth to
different forms of gain, now workers pile into heaps the undressed wool,
now card it, now draw it into a tenuous thread, now weave the threads
to form webs, and now they buy and sell for gain garments of every kind...
So important is this work that Pallas herself has claimed it for her
own hands, of which she has judged it worthy, and deems her victory
over Arachne a token of her greatness" [Astronomica,
Manilius, 1st century AD, book 4, p.233]. See under 'Astrological influences'
below for the full excerpts.

Manilius is describing the process of deriving thread from wool,
"and now weave the threads to form webs", and associates it with the
weaving competition of Pallas (Greek Athena) and Arachne, who hanged
herself. Athena took pity on Arachne. Sprinkling her with the juices
of aconite (a-, not, + konis, 'dust', 'without dust', understood
to mean the dust of the arena, hence 'without struggle,
unconquerable' [Klein]),
Athena loosened the rope, which became a cobweb, while Arachne herself
was changed into a spider; "and her descendants to forever hang from
threads and to be great weavers" (Ovid). [Arachne
gives her name to the arachnids; spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks.
Spiders are of the order Araneae, aranea, this word
resembles the word Aries; and arena, the Latin word for sand?]. The
word 'spider' is cognate with the Latin or Roman word for balance or
scales, pendere. The Aries/Libra
axis represents the two equinoxes, Aries is the vernal equinox, and
Libra the autumnal equinox. The competition between Arachne and Pallas/Athena
might be represented in the two equinoxes.

“The battering ram (aries) gets its name from
its appearance, because like a fighting ram (aries) it batters
a wall with its impetus. A head of iron is fashioned on a strong and
knotty tree-trunk, and, suspended by ropes, the ram is driven against
a wall by many hands, and then drawn back it is aimed again with a greater
force. Finally, beaten with frequent blows, the side of the wall gives
way, and the battering ram breaks through where it has caved in, and
makes a breach. Against the thrust of a battering ram the remedy is
a sack filled with straw and set in the place where the battering ram
strikes, for the impact of the thrust of the battering ram is softened
in the yielding hollow of the sack. Thus harder things give way rather
easily to softer.” [The
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, p.364.]

“The ram (aries) is either
named after the word Ares, that is, after
'Mars' - whence we call the males in a flock 'males'
(mas, genitive maris)
- or because this animal was the first to be sacrificed on altars (ara,
genitive aris) by pagans. So, the 'ram' because it was placed
on the altar; whence also this (Sedulius, PaschalPoem
1.115: The ram is offered at the altar.” [Isidore,
The Etymologies, 7th century AD, p.247.]

The Roman god of war, Mars, was identified with
the Greek god Ares. His name is the basis of the words;
martial (as in martial arts or
martial law), March (the third month
of the year), the names Marcus, Mark,
Martin. Roman Mars/Greek Aries represents the
masculine archetype; Isidore sees a relationship between
the words Mars and male, from Latin masculus,
diminutive of mas, male. Isidore thinks the word marriage
is also a relative:

“But 'husband' (maritus) without
an additional term means a man who is married. 'Husband' comes from
'masculine' (mas, adjective)
as if the word were mas (i.e. 'male,' noun), for the noun is
the primary form, and it has masculus as a diminutive form;
maritus is derived from this” [Isidore,
The Etymologies, 7th century AD, p.210.]

Also a connection between musculus (from
Indo-European *mus-
'A mouse; also a muscle') and masculus:

“The mussel (musculus)
is a shellfish from whose milt oysters conceive, and they are called
musculus as if the word were masculus
(i.e. 'male')” [Isidore,
The Etymologies, 7th century AD, p.262.]

On the word frankincense Isidore says:

“Also we call it masculum because
it is spherical in its nature like testicles (compare masculus,
'male')" [Isidore,
The Etymologies, 7th century AD, p.348.]

The Babylonians called this constellation 'The Hired Laborer':

"indicating that the month of Aries was a time of special
activity when extra help is needed. From about 1730 BCE until AD 217
Aries was the Princeps Signorum Coelestium - the background
constellation of the first day of spring, 'the Indicator of the Reborn
Sun'. After AD 217, due to the precession of the Equinoxes, Aries relinquished
this honor to Pisces, the Fishes" [The
New Patterns in the Sky, Julius D.W. Staal 1988.]

The astrological influences of the constellation given by Manilius:

"The Ram, who is rich with an abundance of fleecy wool
and, when shorn of this, with a fresh supply, will ever cherish hopes;
he will rise from the sudden shipwreck of his affairs to abundant wealth
only to meet with a fall, and his desires will lead him to disaster;
he will yield his produce for the common benefit, the fleece which by
a thousand crafts gives birth to different forms of gain, now workers
pile into heaps the undressed wool, now card it, now draw it into a
tenuous thread, now weave the threads to form webs, and now they buy
and sell for gain garments of every kind; no nation could dispense with
these, even without indulgence in luxury. So important is this work
that Pallas herself has claimed it for her own hands, of which she has
judged it worthy, and deems her victory over Arachne a token of her
greatness. These are the callings and allied crafts that the Ram will
decree for those born under his sign: in an anxious breast he will fashion
a diffident heart that ever yearns to commend itself by its own praise.
When the Ram emerges above the surface of the waves (rising) and the
curve of his neck appears before his horns, he will give birth to hearts
that are never content with what is theirs; he will engender minds bent
on plunder and will banish all sense of shame: such is their desire
for venture. Even thus does the ram himself rush forth with lowered
horns, resolved to win or die. Not for them the gentle ease of a fixed
abode with none but peaceful cares; it is ever their delight to travel
through unknown cities, to explore uncharted seas, and enjoy the whole
world's hospitality. The Ram himself gives you evidence of this: once
furrowing a trail through the glassy sea, he tinged it with the gold
of his fleece, when on his back he carried Phrixus, bereft of his sister
(Helle) by fate's decree, and brought him to the banks of the Phasis
and to Colchis". [Astronomica,
Manilius, 1st century AD, book 4, p.233].

Aries the Ram, is Ariete in Italy, Belier in
France, and Widder in Germany — Bayer's Wider; in the Anglo-Saxon
tongue it is Ramm, and in the Anglo-Norman of the 12th century,
Multuns. The constellation is marked by the noticeable triangle
to the west of the Pleiades, 6° north of the ecliptic, 20° north of
the celestial equator, and 20° due south from gamma Andromedae (Mirach).

It always was Aries with the Romans; but Ovid called it
PhrixeaOvis; and Columella, PecusAthamantidosHelles, Phrixus, and PortitorPhrixi; others,
PhrixeumPecus and PhrixiVector, Phrixus
being the hero-son of Athamas, who fled on the back of this Ram with
his sister Helle to Colchis to escape the wrath of his stepmother Ino.
It will be remembered that on the way Helle fell off into the sea, which
thereafter became the Hellespont, as Manilius wrote:

First Golden Aries shines (who whilst he swam

Lost part of 's Freight, and gave the Sea a Name);

and Longfellow, in his translation from Ovid's Tristia:

The Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle.

{Page 76} On reaching his journey's end, Phrixus sacrificed the creature
and hung its fleece in the Grove of Ares, where it was turned to gold
and became the object of the Argonauts' quest. From this came others
of Aries' titles: Ovisaurea and auratus, Chrysomallus,
and the Low Latin Chrysovellus.

The Athamas used by Golumella was a classical reproduction
of the "Euphratean Tammuz Dum-uzi (Semetic Tammuz who
is Sumerian Dumuzid, prototype of the Classical Adonis), the Only Son
of Life, whom Aries at one time represented in the heavens, as did
Orion at a previous date, perhaps when it marked
the vernal equinox 4500 B.C.

Cicero and Ovid styled the constellation Cornus; elsewhere
it was Corniger ("Horn-bearer) and Laniger ("Wool-bearer");
Vervex, the
Wether; Duxopulentigregis; Caputarietinum; and, in allusion to its position, Aequinoctialis.
VenmsPortitor, the Spring-bringer, is cited by Caesius
(Dutch astronomical writer), who also mentioned Arcanus,
that may refer to the secret rites in the worship of the divinities
whom Aries represented.

From about the year 1730 before our era he was the Princepssignorumcoelestium, Princepszodiaci, and
the Ductorexercituszodiaci, continuing so through
Hipparchos' time; Manilius writing of this:

The Ram having passed the Sea serenely shines,

And leads the Year, the Prince of all the Signs.

But about A.D. 420 his office was transferred to Pisces.

Brown writes as to the origin of the title Aries, without any supposition
of resemblance of the group to the animal:

The stars were regarded by a pastoral population as flocks; each
asterism had its special leader, and the star, and subsequently
the constellation, that led the heavens through the year was the
Ram.

Elsewhere he tells us that when Aries became chief of the zodiac
signs it took the Akkadian titles Ku, I-ku, and
I-ku-u, from its lucidaHamal, all equivalents of the Assyrian
Rubu, Prince, and very appropriate to the leading stellar group
of that date, although not one of the first formations.

He also finds, from an inscription on the TabletoftheThirtyStars, that the Euphratean astronomers
had a constellation Gam, the Scimetar, stretching from Okda (another
name for Alrisha) of the Fishes
(Pisces) to
Hamal of Aries, the curved blade being formed by the latter's three
brightest components. This was the weapon protecting the kingdom against
the Seven Evil Spirits, or Tempest Powers.

Jensen thinks that Aries may have been first adopted into the zodiac
by the Babylonians when its stars began to mark the vernal equinox;
and that the insertion of it between Taurus
and Pegasus compelled the cutting off a {Page
77} part of each of those figures, — a novel suggestion that would save
much theorizing as to their sectional character.

The Jewish Nisan, our March-April, was associated with Aries, for
Josephus said that it was when the sun was here in this month that his
people were released from the bondage of Egypt; and so was the same
month Nisanu of Assyria, where Aries represented the Altar and the Sacrifice,
a ram usually being the victim. Hence the prominence given to this sign
in antiquity even before its stars became the leaders of the rest; although
Berossos and Macrobius attributed this to the ancient belief that the
earth was created when the sun was within its boundaries; and Albumasar,
of the 9th century [This author, known also as 'Abu Ma'shar and Ja'phar,
was from Balh' in Turkestan, celebrated as an astrologer and quoted
by Al Biruni, but with the caution that he was a very incorrect astronomer.
The Lenox Library of New York has a copy of his OpusintroductoriiinastronomiaAlbumazarisabalachi,
IdusFebruarii, 1489, published at Venice with illustrations.
Its similarity to the Hyginus of the preceding year would indicate
that they issued from the same press.], in his devolutionofYears wrote of the Creation as having taken place
when "the seven planets" — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
and Saturn — were in conjunction here, and foretold the destruction
of the world when they should be in the same position in the last degree
of Pisces.

Dante, who called the constellation Montone, followed with
a similar thought in the Inferno:

The sun was mounting with those stars

That with him were, what time the Love Divine

At first in motion set those beauteous things.

To come, however, to a more precise date, Pliny said that Cleostratos
of Tenedos first formed Aries, and, at the same time, Sagittarius; but
their origin probably was many centuries, even millenniums, antecedent
to this, and the statement is only correct in so far as that he may
have been the first to write of them.

Many think that our figure was designed to represent the Egyptian
King of Gods shown at Thebes with ram's horns, or veiled and crowned
with feathers, and variously known as Amon,
Ammon, Hammon, Amen, or
Amun, and worshiped with great ceremony at his temple
in the oasis Ammonium, now Siwah, 5° west of Cairo
on the northern limit of the Libyan desert. Kircher gave Aries' title
there as TametouroAmoun, Regum
Ammonis. But there is doubt whether the Egyptian stellar
Ram coincided with ours, although Miss Clerke says that the latter's
stars were called the Fleece.

{Page 78} As the god Amen was identified with Zeus,
and Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, so also was Aries, although this
popularly was attributed to the story that the classical divinity assumed
the Ram's form when all the inhabitants of Olympus fled into Egypt from
the giants led by Typhon. From this came the constellation's titles
JupiterAmmon; JovisSidus (Jovis is Jupiter
and sidus means constellation); MinervaeSidus,
the goddess being Jove's daughter (or the Greek Athena - Athena's constellation);
the JupiterLibycus of Propertius, DensLibycus
of Dionysius, and AmmonLibycus of Nonnus.

The Hebrews knew it as Teli, and inscribed it on the banners
of Gad or Naphtali; the Syrians, as Amru or Emru; the
Persians, as Bara, Bere, or Berre; the Turks, as
Kuzi; and in the Parsi Bundehesh it was Varak:
all these being synonymous with Aries. The unexplained Arabib,
or Aribib, also is seen for it. The early Hindus called it
Aja and Mesha, the Tamil Mesham; but the later followed
the Greeks in Kriya.

An Arabian commentator on Ulug Beg called the constellation AlKabshal ‘Alif, the Tame Ram; but that people generally
knew it as Al Hamal, the Sheep, — Hammel with
Riccioli, Alchamalo with Schickard, and Alhamel with Chilmead
(Hamal is also the alpha star of the
constellation).

As one of the zodiacal twelve of China it was the Dog, early known
as HeangLow, or KiangLeu; and later, under
Jesuit influence, as PihYang, the White Sheep; while
with Taurus and Gemini
it constituted the WhiteTiger, the western one of the
four great zodiac groups of China; also known as theLakeofFullness, the FiveReservoirsofHeaven, and the HouseoftheFiveEmperors.

Chaucer and other English writers of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries
Anglicized the title as Ariete, which also appeared in the Low
Latin of the 17th century. It was about this time, when it was sought
to reconstruct the constellations on Bible lines, that Aries was said
to represent Abraham’sRam caught in the thicket;
as also SaintPeter, the bishop of the early church, with
Triangulum as his Mitre. Caesius considered it the Lamb sacrificed
on Calvary for all sinful humanity.

Aries generally has been figured as reclining with reverted head
admiring his own golden fleece, or looking with astonishment at the
Bull (Taurus) rising backward; but in the
Albumasar of 1489 he is standing erect, and some early artists
showed him running towards the west, with what is probably designed
for the zodiac-belt around his body. A coin of Domitian bears a representation
of him as the Princepsjuventutis, and he appeared on
those of Antiochus of Syria with head towards the Moon and Mars — an
appropriate figuring; for, astrologically, Aries was the lunar house
of that planet. In common with all the other signs, he is shown on the
zodiacal rupees generally attributed to the great Mogul prince Jehangir
Shah, but {Page 78} really struck by Nur Mahal Mumtaza, his favorite
wife, between 1616 and 1624, each figure being surrounded by sun-rays
with an inscription on the reverse.

Its equinoctial position gave force to Aratos' description of its
"rapid transits," but he is strangely inexact in his

faint and starless to behold

As stars by moonlight —

a blunder for which Hipparchos seems to have taken him to task. Aratos
however, was a more successful versifier than astronomer. Among astrologers
Aries was a dreaded sign indicating passionate temper and bodily hurt,
and thus it fitly formed the HouseofMars, although
some attributed guardianship over it to Pallas Minerva, daughter of
Jove whom Aries represented. It was supposed to hold sway over the head
and face; in fact the Egyptians called it Arnum, the Lord of
the Head; while, geographically, it ruled Denmark, England, France,
Germany, Lesser Poland and Switzerland, Syria, Capua, Naples and Verona,
with white and red as its colors. In the time of Manilius it was naturally
thought of as ruling the Hellespont and Propontis, Egypt and the Nile,
Persia and Syria; and, with Leo and Sagittarius, was the FieryTrigon.

Ampelius said that it was in charge of the Roman Africus, the Southwest
Wind, the Italians' Affrico, or Gherbino; but the Archer (Sagittarius)
and Scorpion (Scorpius) also shared this duty,
Pliny wrote that the appearance of a comet within its borders portended
great wars and wide-spread mortality, abasement of the great and elevation
of the small, with fearful drought in the regions over which the sign
predominated; while 17th-century almanacs attributed many troubles to
men, and declared that "many shall die of the rope "when the sun was
in the sign; but they ascribed to its influence "an abundance of herbs."

Its symbol,
, probably
represents the head and horns of the animal.

The eastern portion is inconspicuous, and astronomers have mapped
others of its stars somewhat irregularly, carrying a horn into
Pisces and a leg into
Cetus.

The sun now passes through it from the 16th of April to the 13th
of May.

A nova is reported to have appeared here in May, 1012, described
by Epidamnus, the monk of Saint Gall, as oculosverberans.